“Money Talks” of the American Numismatic Association

As a longtime admirer of the works of Ayn Rand, I hold money in high regard. The origin of money is in ritual gift exchange, rather than in economic calculation, which came tens of thousands of years of later. That being so, it remains that periodic innovations in economic calculation caused quantum leaps in prosperity and general welfare. People are unlikely to kill or die for what they can sell or buy. 

But I never joined any organizations for numismatics until after 1992. For one thing, I was never a serious collector and still am not. I attended a couple of lectures by Clifford Mishler, then the president of Krause Corporation, publishers of hobby periodicals and books, and later president of the American Numismatic Association. He said that all collectors, whether of coins, stamps, automobiles, vinyl recordings, wine or anything else, share four passions: Completeness, Condition, Rarity, and Value. Those are not my concerns. If I have one of something, regardless of its condition or value, I have an artifact about which there is a story to be told. Coins in particular are the often the most common artifact of any society. You have to be a serious collector to find a truly rare coin. 

 

In 1992, I started hearing the ANA “Money Talks” radio program in the mornings as I was waking up to get ready for work. The ANA says: 

In 1992, “Money Talks,” a radio program on the history and lore of money, began broadcasting across the country on several local radio stations. The “Money Talks” broadcasts were typically 2-4 minutes long and consisted of coin stories that were recorded to educate and encourage interest in the hobby of numismatics.

 

I submitted about 20 scripts, and about half of them were produced for broadcast. The ANA granted me a literary award for a couple of them. 

https://www.money.org/money-talks-radio-archive/

I went on to write more full-length features about Peace Dollars, Large Cents, and other products of U.S. Mint. I also edited a monthly column, Internet Connections, which spotlighted safe and informative websites for collectors, typically, national mints or museums, specialty clubs, and sometimes the websites of dealers who were serious researchers.  

 

 https://archive.org/details/bestofanamtpart1

https://archive.org/details/bestofanamtpart2

The ANA rebranded “Money Talks” as a series of lectures at the semi-annual conventions, and many of them have been recorded and placed in video archives such as YouTube. 

Pay Warrants of the Texian Navy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWGzivjlOUI

The Texas Navy on NecessaryFacts 

Mutiny Aboard the San Antonio  

IRELAND'S POET LAUREATE by Michael Marotta 

 

"Our coins must pitch and spin to please the gambler, and pack into rolls to please the banker." Those were the words of Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats. Yeats won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 and was regarded as the greatest poet of his time. He was also in charge of the committee that designed Ireland's coins.

 

Yeats was born in Dublin on June 13, 1865. At that time Ireland was completely under the control of England. While working in England, Yeats joined other Irish patriots who eventually won independence for the Emerald Isle. A world-renown playwright and poet, Yeats was elected to the Irish Senate. He chaired the committee that chose the designs for the coins of the new Irish Free State.

Yeats had seen classical Greek coins while studying and writing in Italy during the late 1800s. He arranged for all of the artists on this project to receive ancient Hellenistic coins, so they could see for themselves the powerful images he wanted to bring to Ireland's coins.

 

For over seventy years, Ireland's coins changed little from the winning designs of Percy Metcalf, a young sculptor recommended by the British School in Rome and selected by Yeats' committee. The horse, bull, salmon, hound and other animals of Ireland's eight circulating coins were all joined by a common symbol of Ireland's poetic tradition: the Celtic harp.

 

William Yeats died on January 28, 1939, at the age of 73.

 

(Numismatist, historian, and jurist Theodor Mommsen, was granted a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902.)

 

A.N.A. MONEY TALKS Transcript No. 1400 

ANCIENT HEARTS by Michael E. Marotta 

Look around . . . heart symbols are everywhere on Valentine's Day. 

Maybe even on a coin. 

The first heart symbols that appeared on ancient coins were produced 2500 years ago in North Africa. 

The town of Cyrene was founded in the 7th century B.C. by Greeks. 

Their town was eventually destroyed, but it was near what today is the city of Benghazi, along the coast of Libya. 

The city enjoyed modest prosperity . . . until its inhabitants 

discovered the silphium plant. (The plant is extinct now, but its closest 

living relative is a key ingredient in Worcestershire sauce.) Silphium was 

used as an herb. Its stalk was edible. Its pungent sap was the basis for cough syrups, and gave food an interesting flavor. But the most important use for silphium was as a contraceptive. 

 

Modern research suggests that silphium actually worked, and because of this, it was in great demand. Attempts to cultivate it in Syria and Greece were unsuccessful. It only grew near Cyrene--and, starting in 500 B.C., it became a steady source of income for the townspeople. By Roman times, silphium had been harvested to extinction. 

Over the centuries, the silphium plant came to symbolize Cyrene. The plant appeared on the town's gold, silver and bronze coins, starting around 500 B.C. Often the entire plant was shown. But sometimes, only the seeds of the plant were depicted. The silphium's seeds were heart-shaped, and those heart-shaped seeds that appeared on Cyrene's coins eventually came to symbolize love--a symbol that's still with us today. 

 

Today's program was written by Michael Marotta. "Money Talks" is 

a production of the American Numismatic Association in Colorado Springs, 

America's coin club for over a century. Take a tour of ANA's virtual Money Museum on the Web at www.money.org.

  

Transcript No. 1329                              November 6, 1997

THE MYSTERY OF THE MINT       by Michael Marotta     

 

Imagine a world without coins.  It isn't easy.  Coins and paper money are basic to our civilization.  Yet someone had to invent coins, and the truth is that we just do not know why coins were invented.     

 

Coins first appeared about 2,600 years ago in the ancient country of Lydia, in what is today western Turkey.  But people in the Middle East had already been using gold, silver, copper and other common trade goods as money for thousands of years, going as far back as perhaps 8000 B.C.E.     

 

From our modern viewpoint, the advantages of coinage are obvious. But those advantages were not so obvious to ancient peoples. Today, there are several theories to explain the invention of coinage. Many people think that merchants invented coins by marking nuggets and ingots of precious metals.  The marks were promises of purity and value. 

 

Another theory is that coins were invented to serve temples. After all, ancient coins have gods and goddesses on them.  Temples amassed wealth from donations and the temples might have issued the coins as rewards for good behavior. 

 

However, some scholars today think that the first coins were given to the mercenary soldiers of Greek towns.  These coins may have been like military campaign medals -- badges of honor that may not have been intended to be spent as money.

 

Whatever the origins of coinage, the idea spread rapidly.  Within a hundred years, almost every Greek town from southern Russia to eastern Spain had its own mint.  Today, people collect ancient coins for their historic value and artistic beauty.     

 

This has been "Money Talks."  Today's program was written by Michael Marotta and underwritten by Whitman Coin Products, a division of GoldenBooks, quality coin supplies at affordable prices.  "Money Talks" is a copyrighted production of the American Numismatic Association, 818 N.Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO 80903, 719/632-2646, ana@money.org,http://www.money.org.

 

 

ANA: MT: Use of Mintmarks                                    

Transcript No. 1648                                                      January 27, 1999

 

USE OF MINTMARKS  by Michael E. Marotta

 

    If you look closely at coins, you will find that some of them have small letters indicating the mint at which they were struck.  Mintmarks go back to ancient times.  They were used to prevent forgery as well as to honor the mintmaster.

 

    Mintmarks date to about the year 400 B.C.  At the time, Greek towns elected their moneyers or mintmasters to annual terms of office.  These men ometimes were the actual die cutters, but usually they were officials who oversaw the cutting of dies and striking of coins.

 

    The mintmaster might engrave his whole name on a die, or just the first letters of his name.  Sometimes he made a "monogram."  The purpose was twofold.  It allowed praise for the man who did the work and identified the person responsible in case the coinage later proved to be of short weight or impure alloy.

 

   When the Roman Empire stretched across three continents, it operated more than 20 different mints with over 50 different mintmarks for a period of 300 years.  We have identified the mintmarks of London in England; Constantinople in Turkey; and Alexandria in Egypt.

 

    Today most nations have only one mint.  Larger countries often assign letters of the alphabet to identify mint cities, starting with the nation's capital.  On French coins, for example, the letter "A" stands for Paris. An "A" on a German coin, on the other hand, usually means "Berlin."

 

    Some nations contract out the production of their coinage.  On some British and Canadian coins, for example, the letter "H" stands for the "Heaton" company.

 

    In the United States, the main mint at Philadelphia typically did not use the "P" mintmark until recent decades.  Today, most American coins have either a "P" for "Philadelphia" or "D" for "Denver."  Usually you will see an "S" for "San Francisco" or "W" for "West Point" only on special coins and proof sets.

 

    This has been "Money Talks."  Today's program was written by Michael Marotta and underwritten by Whitman Coin Products, a division of Golden Books, the right choice for coin collecting books and supplies. "Money Talks" is a copyrighted production of the American Numismatic Association, 818 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO 80903, 719/632-2646, ana@money.org, http://www.money.org.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

Accounting for Civilization 

Debt: The Seed of Civilization 

Robert Leonard’s “Curious Currency” 

Numismatics; History as Market 

Money as Speech and Peacemaking 

The Future of Money 

Mere Gold is Not Enough: Hayek’s “Denationalization” 

Numismatics: The Standard of Proof in Economics 

Scripophily 

The Art of Finance 

Challenge Coins 

 

Not Conned by Seghal’s Coined 

My Numismatic Bibliography (Partial List) 

 

My Armadillocon Presentations

I attend Armadillocon because it serves writers with workshops and panel discussions and science presentations. As a technical writer, I try to bring the reader into the story. Otherwise, without engagement, they will not follow the plans, policies, or procedures. I try to make technical writing lively by varying the language with synonyms, pacing passive voice into the active for contrast, setting the stage with a strong, meaningful introduction, and including plenty of pictures (each worth 1000 words). 

 

Interior of Lindsay's space "balloon"
by Brad W. Foster for this presentation

Enthralled by Armadillocon 39 (2017), I volunteered to present at the next convention in 2018. At Armadillocon 40, my slideshow was “From Texas to the Moon with John Leonard Riddell.” I proposed Riddell as the first working scientist to publish a science fiction story. Orrin Lindsay’s Plan of Aerial Navigation, with a Narrative of His Explorations in the Higher Regions of the Atmosphere, and His Wonderful Voyage Round the Moon! (Rea's Power Press, New Orleans, 1847). Riddell taught chemistry at the Louisiana Medical College (later Tulane University) and while there he invented the binocular microscope. Because Riddell also served as the chief melter of the New Orleans mint, I sold his story to The Numismatist (vol 127 no. 4, April 2017). I also presented it at an ANA convention in Dallas on 5 March 2016 and the story is here on my blog at https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2012/12/from-texas-to-moon-with-john-leonard.html

 

For Armadillocon 41 in 2019, my talk on Friday night 2 August was on “The Future of Money” (on this blog here: https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-future-of-money.html). This was also my presentation for an ANA convention, for which I was awarded a stipend by the Sundman/Littleton Coin Lecture Series 14 August 2019, for the Chicago venue. Over the years, the ANA honored several of my publications with literary awards, first, second, and third place, depending. And I wrote a monthly column for them from 2005 to 2011 in addition to accepting assignments from the editor for special feature articles. So, this was an area where I could bring some expertise.

My second engagement for Armadillocon 41 was less well grounded but even more fun for me. I proposed a talk on “The Future of Crime and Punishment.” My degrees are in criminology and social science and I have a couple of peer reviewed publications, but not the depth of numismatics and I am not a retired FBI guy, just a retired security guard. However, I was placed on a panel to game the robbing of a space station, “The Perfect Heist: Crime in the 23^rd Century.” (Stina Leicht moderated with help from David Afsharirad, Rob Rogers, Michael Bracken, GoH Rebecca Roanhorse and me, the wheelman.) We got away with it.

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Massive Constellations of Artificial Satellites: What if They  Were Natural? 

Western Shoot-Out: The Virginian versus Bonanza 

Viewing Mars 

Regimental Public Affairs Officer 

 

The GOP as Pushy Beggars

That Donald Trump is a bully is obvious. His influence on the Republican Party and conservatives is also apparent. Back in late October 2016 when Trump’s election was still in some doubt in the minds of Democrats, at a press conference in Michigan, Michael Moore explained in clear language why Trump would win: Donald Trump brought to the polls millions of disaffected non-voters and other centerists whose personal losses and disappointments opened them up to a Leader making Promises. Now, the Grand Old Party attempts to energize its loyalists by reacting as a victimized bully.

 

Where do these "matching funds" come from?

Back in 2007, I was elected as a Republican precinct delegate from Ann Arbor Township. It was pretty easy. Ann Arbor is heavily Democrat. There were six slots on the GOP side of the ballot and I was one of four people running. Before moving here, I joined the Austin Tech Republicans luncheon club. Since then, I have been registered on both sides depending on the candidates in the local elections. Austin is heavily Democrat, but sometimes it is important to send the GOP leadership a message in a primary. The same is true of the Democrats. In 2016, I voted for Bernie Sanders as a vote against Hillary Clinton. 

 

Because I still have my Ann Arbor cellphone number, I have been getting these text messages from the Republicans. Their strategy reveals their soul. (And, yes, I block each one. They use a different number the next time.)

 

Now, it's my fault.

Aggressive beggars kept us from moving to Portland, Oregon. Back in 2010, after completing an associate’s, a bachelor’s, and a master’s, work was still hard to find in Michigan. So, we looked around. Portland was nice. The beggars were hard to take. They followed us on the street; sometimes they stood in front of us. Austin was different. With four months of 100-degree highs and no rain, brown was the new green. The beggars in the medians were selling ice water. I liked that entrepreneurial spirit. 

 

Despite the political narratives to the contrary, government in Texas follows the Taxachusetts model. Our senior federal senator, John Cornyn, never met a new law he did not like. We got a problem? Make it illegal. The state legislature made it illegal to buy Tesla automobiles by making it illegal to buy a car from a manufacturer who did not have a dealership in the state. It was the Texas automotive dealers association who got that passed in the Republican-controlled state legislature and signed by the Republican governor. That was changed a couple of years ago. Tesla is in orbit now and that plays well in Houston. 

 

Insistent Begging from Trumps Senior and Junior 

Working on a state agency project now, I have been diving into the Texas Compiled Laws, especially the Texas Government Code and the Texas Administrative Code. We have a franchise tax here. If you license your music or your painting or your poetry, you pay a tax on the income. But, if you license mineral rights, you are exempt from the franchise tax. That’s what makes fascism more successful than socialism: they know whose bread to butter.

 

Showing some concern and then blaming others.

The root of the problem is that in essence fascism is just another kind of socialism. Right wing syndicalism and left wing syndicalism are mirror images. Whatever the shades in their rainbows, the radiation is on the same spectrum. 

July 14 -- Bastille Day. I am not going to post all of these as they keep coming in, but this is starting to sound like On the Waterfront.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Tycoon Dough is Democratic 

In Support of Paid Political Advertising 

President Trump and the Military 

Toxic Leadership 

What is “Legal Tender”?

Once again, this time on the Galt’s Gulch Online message board, my conservative comrades displayed a disappointing though predictable ignorance about money. For people who claim to honor the bourgeois virtues of trade and commerce, they collectively guard a treasury of incomplete, incorrect, erroneous, and falsified assertions.  In truth, objective investigation demonstrates that the government has the right, the need, and the obligation to define and create legal tender.

 

Gold. Coin-shaped. Issued by Congress.
Not Money. Not Legal Tender.

Last week (about January 8, 2017), this discussion was launched:

Which is worse, government“printing” money or government “borrowing” money”

Posted by $CBJ 1 week ago to Economics

Several writers declaimed against “legal tender laws.”  So, I asked (rhetorically) for definition of “legal tender.” dbhalling, an attorney-at-law who specializes in intellectual property rights wrote this:

(cut and paste) Posted by  dbhalling 5 days, 20 hours ago [January 9, 2017 --mem]

Here is the exact statute. "Today the legal tender law in the US is 35 USC § 5103 which states: United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts. Why legal tender laws do not require government monopolies on money absolutely, they are almost always used for that eventually. You just wrong that any Legal Tender law is consistent with Objectivism..  (/cut and paste)

Of course, that is not actually a definition. As a lawyer, dbhalling only cares about what the law says. He does not need to investigate further. Moreover, he was not alone in claiming that an “Objectivist government” would not have the power to create legal tender. But if there were such a thing as an “Objectivist government” it would need to define legal tender, as does any government. 

Deed for Sale of Federal Land.
A valuable paper promise of the Government.
Perhaps negotiable. Not money. Not Legal Tender.

According to Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, and in line with much else on the libertarian right wing of American politics, the proper functions of government include operating courts of law. It is for the courts that the legislature defines “legal tender.” If the legislature did not define legal tender, there would be no way to know when a debt has been discharged, or when payment has been made.

 

One Dollar in Lawful Money.

Like much else in our traditional laws, the idea of debt is still mired in the agrarian feudal Middle Ages, and not yet enjoying the free air of commercial city life, i.e., civilization. In fact, very little trade is “cash on the barrel head.” It never has been. Since at least 2000 BCE, merchants have dealt at distances in both space and time, making and keeping promises to buy now and pay later. (See, for instance, The Kingdom of the Hittites by Trevor Bryce, Oxford University Press, 2005.) We now enjoy a vast global city. Cash is accepted – even preferred – on the street, but retailers buy from wholesalers who buy from manufacturers, all on credit and via debt.

 

One of the most valuable
coin-like objects issued by
the Federal government.
Not money. Not Legal tender.

Contrary to common myths, money did not evolve out of barter; and barter did not originate in the desire for economic gain. (See David Graeber’s “Debt: The First 5,000 Years” here.) Ritual gift exchange is the taproot of commerce.  For tens of thousands of years, including two ice ages from about 35,000 YA to about 10,000 YA, strangers became friends by exchanging gifts.  Finally, after writing was invented to keep track of commodity promises, we abstracted “money” as a safety to mitigate risk.  If you promise a sheep, but all of your sheep have died, what can you give instead? 

Wheat was first. Then after about 2000 BCE, silver was accepted. The astonishing attribute of silver is that it is useless.  It is pretty when polished, but it cannot hold an edge without being alloyed.  (The same is true of copper, which is why the Bronze Age is a demarcation along our common advance. And we have archaeological evidence of large “oxhides” of bronze offered in trade.) Silver served as “legal tender” i.e., money recognized by the “courts” (king or temple).  Gold is likewise useless, but has the added value of not tarnishing, and being far less commonly found. 

Code of Ur-Nammu
(fragment)

 18. If a man knocks out the eye of another man, he shall weigh out one-half a mina of silver. 

19. If a man has cut off another man’s foot, he is to pay ten shekels. 

22. If a man knocks out a tooth of another man, he shall pay two shekels of silver.

24. [...] If he does not have a slave, he is to pay 10 shekels of silver. If he does not have silver, he is to give another thing that belongs to him.
The Law Code of Ur-Nammu, about 2050 BCE at Real World History here.

In modern times, the governments of the British American colonies created paper money. Whether and to what extent the new Federal government would be allowed to do that was debated. The Constitution did not forbid Federal paper money, and the necessities of commerce almost demanded it. The Federal government had the power to borrow money. That created the power to create promissory notes under the Necessary and Proper clause.  

Coinage Law of June 28, 1834 recognized several foreign coins
as legal tender. Laws before and after this also 
defined the legal tender status of foreign coins.

Moreover, in the USA until 1857, several types of foreign coins were commonly recognized by law as being “legal tender.”  The Spanish Dollar was the foundation of commerce, both for international and local trade. Bank notes from the early 19^th century promise to pay fractions of a dollar, but display images of Spanish or Mexican coins.  (See “Spanish Coins on American Notes” here.)

Promises 25 cents. Offers 2 Reales.
(Hence, "2 bits" means a quarter dollar.)

Finally, all governments create a plethora of medals, medallions, certificates, promises, and warrants that may be valuable, negotiable, even fungible, but are not recognized in courts of law as legal tender. That is why a government must define the term in order for objective law to be possible.

  

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Money as Speech and Peacemaking 

Debt: the Seed of Civilization  

Industrial Medals: A Currency of Fame  

Tokens of Capitalism  

The Market for Voting

What does a capitalist renaissance look like? Most self-identified "conservatives" want some kind of a return to the original Constitution. That means no income tax, and usually no direct election of senators. Whether it includes voting rights for adults under 21, women, and former slaves (or even legal slavery) is not clear. The broad course of history suggests that no restoration ever brings back the past.  

Owned by Nanking University.
Preferred stock usually comes without voting rights.

The Italian Renaissance did not return crucifixion as a mode of execution; neither did it bring back slavery - or the Latin language. In fact, a key element to the Quattrocento was the validation of vernaculars in the former Roman lands and Germania.  Even so, Latin remained a common language. Carl Friedrich Gauss published Theoria residuorum biquadraticorum, Commentatio secunda in 1832. (It was then translated into German.) However, in 1843, he offered Untersuchungen über Gegenstände der Höheren Geodäsie - Erste Abhandlung.  So, the world of 2076 or 2189 might have constitutional republics, complete with national flags, and local languages.

Owned by a woman
in her own right
60 years
before
she could have voted
in a political election.

I see something else on the horizon.

(This post was edited from comments made on the "Galt's Gulch" discussion board of the Atlas Shrugged movie producers.)

The 1909 novel The Secret of the League: The Story of a Social War by Ernest Bramah has been suggested as a forerunner of Atlas Shrugged.  In the final resolution, voting in national elections is given the form of voting in a joint-stock company: one share, one vote.  Shares in that story cost ₤500 (like $250,000 now, perhaps).  In a capitalist future, buying a voting share would be proof of citizenship; and it would nullify the status of "illegal alien." 

The same theory applies here: you buy in, you buy citizenship. And it applies to children. When Herbert Spencer was really a liberal in the 1830s, he advocated for voting rights for children: they work; they pay taxes; they should vote. QED. 

Moreover, shares (citizenship) could be bought and sold repeatedly. The price of a vote would rise close to elections and fall in the off season. People could change "citizenship" i.e., voting rights often, repeatedly, and for a profit (buy low, sell high). In point of fact voting for President of the USA is not cost-effective but voting in the Mayoral Primary is highly important. So, the shrewd citizen should sell their vote before the one and buy it back before the other. 

But it would not be a permanent consequence. Why is citizenship different from any other service or commodity? 

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
All Volitional Beings Deserve Rights
Capitalist Culture
The Science of Liberty
Ayn Rand versus Conservatives

Money as Living History

Pictures of a Distant Country: Seeing America Through Old Paper Money by Richard Doty (Whitman, 2013, 296 pages, $24.95) is a "coffee table" book replete with enlarged, full-color images of banknotes and other fiduciary paper from the 19^th century. Dr. Richard Doty is the senior curator of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Numismatic Collection where he has had 27 years to study, organize, and display the tangible artifacts of our nation’s financial history.

 

Millville, New Jersey, Millville Bank, $2 1857 (proof)

Numismatics delivers the substantial evidence of our economic history.  Even great scholars such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek, and Murray N. Rothbard blundered because they never collected, and therefore were ignorant of the basic truths of what money is, and how people use it. Unlike otherwise very nice but run-of-the-mill efforts that organize the subject either by denominations by year of issue, or by series of issue by denomination, this book honors the American people according to our occupations, families, classes and social statuses, as well as by our own views of whimsy, entertainment, accelerating technology, and national mythology.  

1815: Doty indicates the power drive at the left.

 Doty begins by explaining the origins of our paper money.  For 200 years Europeans found everything in North America except the one thing they hoped most to find: precious metals.  (Gold was finally discovered in North Carolina and Georgia in the early 1800s.)  Tobacco, wampum, and other expedients were short-lived substitutes.  Paper money, backed by public authority was the lasting solution.  Massachusetts was first in 1690.  By the middle of the 1800s, paper money was established as the traditional medium of large-scale commerce.  Paper money also achieved a consistency of design and presentation with “a central vignette, or more portraits to the left or right of the central scene, and a smaller representation bottom center.”  These illustrations are now our windows to the past.

 

Mechanics Bank, Memphis, Tennessee $10 1855

The simple fact is that few teachers or professors even know about the rich array of private bank issues in the 19^th century. This only opens the door for the student who chooses to pursue an independent path to discovery.  Here we have images of how Americans perceived themselves, and (more importantly) how they wanted to be seen. 

Ten chapters including "The People in the Way",
"The People in the Middle", "Childhood and Family", "Whimsy",
"You Can Trust Me", "Progress", "An Age Now Ending"

Our nation expanded urban civilization, as it also was built by yeoman farmers, and, admittedly, by an agrarian society carried by slave labor.  Industry and manufacturing play a large role, of course, as do shipping, railroads, and farming.  

Above: Adrian Michigan. Adrian Insurance Company $1. 1853.
Below: Winsboro, South Carolina. Planters Bank of Fairfield $5. 1855.

While the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, she did not design the banknotes of the 19^th century that portrayed woman as “temptress, saint, and helpmeet.”  By the 1830s, women had been astronomers, mathematicians, even pirates, but we do not meet any of them on banknotes, which, like many women themselves, were considered the property of men. The deeper problem of portraying "woman as..." would not have been understood.

Nonetheless, here is a deep treasury of images narrated by a person whom it is easy to nominate as America’s leading scholar of money.  In 2011, Richard Doty received the Huntington Award of the American Numismatic Society “in recognition of outstanding career contributions to numismatic scholarship.” 

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Money as a Crusoe Concept

Workers Paradise Promised an End to Money

How Much is that in Our Money?

The Art of Finance

Industrial Medals as a Currency of Fame

Money is Speech

For over 2000 years, money has been a medium – sometimes the medium – of communication, especially political speech.  The German Democratic Republic honored Karl Marx on its 100 DM notes from 1971 until 1990.  On the other hand, the privately-owned Clydesdale Bank of Scotland issued a ₤50 note celebrating Adam Smith. 

In Bahrain, the half-dinar coins featuring the Pearl Monument have disappeared from circulation, as the government denies repression of dissidents.

Bahraini Half-Dinar (www.the-war-diaries.com)

In the Roman republic and empire, coins were common instruments of communication.  Julius Caesar boosted his political career by advertising his priesthood on the coins he and his allies issued.  The “Ides of March” denarius of Caesar’s assassin, Marcus Junius Brutus, is highly sought at auction today.  Over 2000 years ago, money was political speech in a life and death struggle for power.



Ides of March Denarius. Harlan J. Berk. Wildwinds.

The coins and paper of the American colonies, states, and central governments carried a host of political messages, from “Mind Your Business” to “We Are One.” 

In the 1790s, British merchants met the need for small change with an astronomical array of tokens.  They advertised their shops, touted their towns and made bold political statements.

  In 1794, the shoemaker, Thomas Hardy, was the secretary to the London Corresponding Society.  His outspoken support for the French Revolution – including his association with a play called "La Guillotine: or, George’s Head" brought him from his shop at 161 Fleet Street to Old Bailey Prison on charges of sedition.  He was acquitted by his peers; and his lawyers struck a token to celebrate their skill and his good fortune.  Today, it is catalogued as Dalton and Hamer Middlesex 204, and you can own one in uncirculated grade for about $150. 

Much Gratitude Brings Servitude
We Were Born Free and Will Never Be Slaves

Another British merchant token from the same time showed a spaniel: “Gratitude brings servitude,” it warns. “We were born free and will not be slaves.”

            The abolition of slavery was one of the many topics in the popular series of “Hard Times Tokens” from the Jacksonian Era.  “Am I not a Man and a Brother” was first a British merchant token and then it and “Am I not a Woman and a Sister” were remade as American tokens. Other partisans heralded or lampooned Jackson – bluntly cartooned as a jackass – Webster, Van Buren, and Benton.  Such tokens are easiest to find in circulated grades because for ten years they were passed from hand to hand in daily commerce. 

            Civil War tokens fall into two broad categories: store cards and politicals.  These private issues filled a gap in commerce and carried strong messages.  Perhaps the most famous political token of the Civil War shows an American flag: “If anyone dares to tear it down, shoot him on the spot” 

That American federal government money now carries the message, “In God We Trust” comes from this same period.  It appeared first on the two-cent coins of 1863, then, on the Silver Certificates of 1954, as a thrust against the godless communists of the USSR.  Among the other political messages on our coins today are Liberty and E Pluribus Unum, with a slew of others courtesy of the 50 State Quarter Program.  Any denomination of current American paper money carries about 20 different phrases, sentences, and word sets.

Stored-value electronic card with non-political message

For over 30 years, privately-issued silver art bars have broadcast a wide array of political messages, starting with Watergate and continuing to the Clinton Impeachment and current war the on terrorism. 

According to University of Texas scholar, Denise Schmandt-Besserat, writing evolved from the use of clay tokens to keep track of livestock, beer, and other farm goods.  The tokens go back to 7500 BCE.  Eventually, the tokens were impressed on clay containers into which the tokens themselves were stored.  Cuneiform writing evolved about 3500 BCE from these symbols.  The oldest known writing on clay tablets are inventory lists and promises to pay.  The oldest known epic, the Gilgamesh, is dated to 1000 years later.  All of this is explained in How Writing Came About by Denise Schmandt-Besserat, which can be ordered from the University of Texas Press for less than $20. 

The Bank of England also commemorated Adam Smith on a ₤20 issue.  Founded in 1694, the Bank was nationalized in 1946, but achieved nominal independence in 1997.  Its governors and directors are appointed by the crown, making it much like the American Federal Reserve, a nominally private entity with close government supervision.  What would Adam Smith or Karl Marx have said about that?

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Accounting for Civilization  (Babylonian clay tokens and the origin of writing)
Debt: the seed of civilization (Further reflections on accounting)
When Writing Met Art (The structure of contracts ordered the narrative of art.)

• Tokens of Capitalism (Privately issued coinages)
• Industrial Medals and the Currency of Fame (Coin-like advertising media)
• Money without Banks and Governments (Local scrips of the Depression Era)
• The Art of Finance (Vignettes on stock certificates, paper money, and coins)

Capitalist Culture (The business of coffee in Cairo 1600 AD)
Workers' Paradise Promised an End to Money (May Day!)
Valentine's Day: Love and Money (Contraceptives and Heart Shapes)